Mr Cavanagh, 29, connected three computers at his North Gosford home so his friends could go head-to-head on the popular online World War II strategy game Battleground Europe
But he exceeded his Telstra Bigpond 60GB ADSL2+ plan by more than 38GB

Telstra's policy is to charge excess data at a rate of 15c per megabyte but, the company says, Bigpond customers are always sent email notification when they are nearing their download limit.

When Mr Cavanagh's next Telstra bill arrived it said he owed them $6041. A distraught Mr Cavanagh contacted Telstra about the massive bill and was told to send an email
http://tinyurl.com/8hbg5v

60 gig is a lot of gaming ??
Why dont these companies just throttle speed ?

98GB is a n***** load of 'gaming'

Because they can make more money charging for it.

Isn't that Trent?

Why dont these companies just throttle speed ?

I think you mean, why don't consumers choose a capped plan

I'd hate to be working for Telstra Bigpond call centre right now.....
The amount of extra calls coming in asking to have their excess usage removed...

imo should have had to pay the bill

I call bulls***. Someone want to try to work out how much traffic 3 people would move playing bf2 for 31days, 18 hours a day (unlikely, but give them the benefit of the doubt)? On a Bigpond Plan, have to add together upload and download bandwidth for the total.

I think it's way more likely one or both of his friends brought their pcs around and left their torrents going, and because BP adds uploads they ended up blowing his cap.

I mean, there's Telstra-hating, and then there's being a nub.

Is there a 60gig capped plan ?

I know its ultimately up to the consumer to select the right plan and accept the conditions, but charging someone $6000 for a plan that was probably a $150 a month plan is ridiculous.

There should be some sort of system that would alert a user by a phone call and then stop the account when its 5x the average monthly bill or something along those lines, for all sort of monthly accounts. Seding someone an automatic email isnt enough, not for that much $, theres no guarantee they have even recieved it.

You cant charge someone $6k for an account that is usually $150 bucks, its just wrong.

The usage charges shouldnt even be that high, charging people per MB, what is it 1997 or something.

haha it looks like Trent from Punchy

just relax ay

last edited by TiT at 14:51:44 21/Jan/09

I call bulls***

+1

I think you mean, why don't consumers choose a capped plan

+2

imo should have had to pay the bill

+3

Mr Cavanagh (if that is indeed your real name) you, sir, are a f***ing idiot.

The article says "Have you got examples of Telstra over-charging you online?" ... but this case isn't really an example of Telstra over-charging? He got charged exactly what was stipulated in his contract. f***ing news.com.au

It's amazing how little 90 gig is in gaming bandwidth. Case in point, there is this game - its kind of like monopoly - where you trade media and software for other media and software, and it chews through the quota something fierce. I think its called "linux iso sharing", perhaps he was playing that game in the background?

I think its called "linux iso sharing", perhaps he was playing that game in the background?

That's a full-conversion mod for "G4y Pr0n Addiction" - released by EA in 2005. OFLC refused to classify the game in Australia.

I call bulls***. Someone want to try to work out how much traffic 3 people would move playing bf2 for 31days, 18 hours a day (unlikely, but give them the benefit of the doubt)? On a Bigpond Plan, have to add together upload and download bandwidth for the total.

It wasn't BF2, it was Battleground Europe apparently... but I'm sure BF2 would use more than that game, its pretty intense.

Now he can spend it on that $6000 sex doll!!! (looks like he needs it)

Or play only on GameArena
Isnt that traffic all free ?

Got some friends that play those 3d games and they refuse to play on GameArena because "too many bad mannered kids"

Maybe you guys need an Adult server or something.

Battleground Europe is an MMO focused on simulation, I think it could easily move more traffic than BF2.

Yes the guy is an idiot, but, most people on qgl would be fairly tech savy, going by this guys picture, I assume this guy isnt.

Most people here would have a usage meter running, or regularly check the usage, this guy probably signed up with some telstra person over the phone, told them that he was going to be using the internet a fair bit and they would have put him on the highest plan and probably said that would be plenty, and we will alert you if you are nearing your usage etc.

You cant moraly charge someone $6k, which would be about 40 times his usual bill, and say there is nothing wrong with that.

Yes he agreed to it and technically he should have to pay.

Telstra should never allow this sort of stuff to happen though, even from the point of view that it makes them look bad. Just look at the news.com.au response, "send us you examples of telstra f***ing you over etc." It makes them look bad and they should have a system that disables the account before it ever gets anywhere near $6

Really, there should be idiot-protection built in to all internet plans. It should be made law that every plan should come default configured to shape users after allocated usage is reached. Then it should be up to the user to configure their account if they want to permit excess usage, as an acknowledgment that they will be charged unreasonable amounts.

My friend got a $5000 Telstra bill for going over his cap. He just refused to pay and claimed that they spelled his name correctly on the bill. Eventually they just dropped the whole matter from what I understand.

aww I dunno - probably a nice cottage industry the T has there in cashing in on 'accidents' like this.

Personally I think they used to get away with it precisely because it's Telstra and you expect that kind of reaction from a phone company if you break contracts.

Their reputation seems to be otherwise really in the dirt lately so the occasional reprieve probably does wonders for their reputation without otherwise affecting the lion's share of their 'accidental' cottage industry.

Also, having a look at the telstra plans page, most of the plans are what they call "liberty" plans, eg shaped, except it seems for the lowest and higest usage limits, IE, the people most likely to go over the limits.

They have the plans setup to sting people with excess usage charges.

Why isnt the 60gb plan for $150 a liberty plan when the 25b plan for $99 is, obviously because they know and want the person on the higher limit to go over, even by a few gig, cause the can make some juicy excess charges.

Mother f***ers.

And why does a 200mb download limit plan even exist? and its not a shaped plan either.

And why does a 200mb download limit plan even exist? and its not a shaped plan either.

Had a client on this plan, they went over every single month...paying like $30-100 a month in excess usage charges. Noone ever bothered to tell them they could pay an extra like 10-20 a month and not get overcharged - thankfully they left and went to optus and pay like 50-60/month on a cap plan.

Dirty telstra....

So all you got to do is ring up today tonight or whatever and you can have a free ride.

Man that's a lot of Linux ISO's.

I work for them and believe it or not plenty of old people / randoms don't actually use the net every day
300mb is like replacing their dialup; they're the kind of people who shut their pc down after using it
if they have to send an email, they walk in, boot it up, login, write their email, click send, shut down

Date Time	free-usage	download	usage
Tue 13 Jan 09 20:43	8984	100402	100402
Tue 13 Jan 09 14:43	8983	100321	100321
Tue 13 Jan 09 08:43	8983	100269	100269
Tue 13 Jan 09 02:43	8983	100247	100247
Mon 12 Jan 09 20:43	8983	100221	100221
Mon 12 Jan 09 16:02	8966	100094	100094
Mon 12 Jan 09 10:02	8966	96073	96073
Mon 12 Jan 09 04:02	8966	95380	95380
Sun 11 Jan 09 22:02	8966	95379	95379
Sun 11 Jan 09 16:02	8965	95336	95336
Sun 11 Jan 09 10:02	8965	95322	95322

^ my usage history, 100gb is SFA
we're all just so used to being fisted in this country we don't realise it
Americans with their uncapped plans can use 500+GB before they get in the s***, depending on their provider - and they pay SFA for it
I realise bandwidth is more expensive here but f***, someone needs to step in and find a way to fix that


last edited by tequila at 17:57:47 21/Jan/09

this is why i love eu internet.. i pay 19 bux for a 20 meg uncapped plan

i think i downloaded 100gig this month

Straight from the horse's mouth - Telstra and Optus have no interest in high usage customers, they just want the low 10-20 gig customers - easy and profitable for them.

Glad I went with iPrimus - 200 gig/$80 per month - nice...

f*** 200gig?!

I've had a $2700 bill waived from bigpond, however that was due to a malfunction of the usage meter adding 40gb or so to the final HOUR of usage for the month.

I think you mean, why don't consumers choose a capped plan

Because consumers don't know anything and they trust bigger companies like Optus and Telstra.

Is there a 60gig capped plan ?

nup think its ~25gb for the largest unlimited plan.

I had i think 20gig back in the day and was nearing cap after about 2 weeks in. I upgraded to the 60gb and downloaded everything i could thought i had 60gb to burn in 2 weeks when in actual fact it was only half of that because i changed plan half way though the billing month. I went a few gig over and think i got about $1500 bill had a winge over the phone and filled out and faxed a form they told me to fill out and they waived it. Somehwere in the form i wrote "f***ING s***POND!" and didnt know how they would take that but yeah, it worked a treat.

I think you mean, why don't consumers choose a capped plan

This isn't good enough trog. We have lots of consumer protections in Australia because a large segment of the community needs it. Its also why its not possible to waive your statutory rights.

There's no reason that Telstra shouldn't implement an opt-out account shutdown policy for their uncapped plans. I'd imagine that about 500 bucks should be a good starting limit for consumers who don't consciously choose to pay above that.

Wait, there is a good reason. They wouldn't catch as many suckers...

Why is it OK for so many of you that a big Australian company should behave like that?

It infuriates the f*** out of me that people continue to use telstra and optus when we have a billion better and cheaper options available.

Because there are people like me who can only get telstra in the area?

edit: and me, it's either telstra cable or 56k dialup for me.

You cant moraly charge someone $6k, which would be about 40 times his usual bill, and say there is nothing wrong with that.

Who cares about morals? He went over his allotted usage, he agreed to the charges and the over-limit charges so I say telstra should have got the collection agencies onto him. That's like saying you're on a 20 minute phone plan and because you're a 16 year old school girl can't help but talk for 20 hours at a time and so shouldn't have to pay your $4000 phone bill.

last edited by whoop at 19:18:03 21/Jan/09

what are these internet caps you speak of :D

This isn't good enough trog. We have lots of consumer protections in Australia because a large segment of the community needs it. Its also why its not possible to waive your statutory rights.

They generally go to extreme pains to make people aware of their usage - emails as you start using up your quota. Unless you're downloading on cable at full speed for hours and ignoring your usage emails it is pretty hard to use this sort of data. I agree with blahnana, I find it massively massively unlikely they used this much data playing games, unless Battlegrounds Europe sucks waaaaaaay more data than every other game ever made.

There's no reason that Telstra shouldn't implement an opt-out account shutdown policy for their uncapped plans. I'd imagine that about 500 bucks should be a good starting limit for consumers who don't consciously choose to pay above that.

there's a great reason - they're beholden to their shareholders to make the most money possible. Taking the largest amount of money possible from the ignorant people is a great way to make money!

The only question I have (which, as far as I'm concerned is the only relevant question) is - is xthe amount they spend supporting this and dealing with retarded people that don't understand bandwidth and usage GREATER than what they make? I can't believe it's a trivial amount - the support burden must be massive.

Why is it OK for so many of you that a big Australian company should behave like that?

Because it's an utterly trivial situation to avoid with barely any knowledge and barely any effort if you just pay the slightest amount of attention to what you're signing up for.

My grandfather was on a 300 MEGABYTE plan on cable for like, 5 years. When I found out like 6 months into it I was really concerned because of all this s*** - he wasn't too tech-savvy so I just assumed he'd get screwed. But he actually read everything they sent him, read the emails, read the contract, read the prices, and f***ing understood what he was getting into. He was like, 78 at the time I think. I figure if he can do it (never having owned a PC in his LIFE, btw), anyone else can.

I figure if he can do it (never having owned a PC in his LIFE, btw), anyone else can.

That's absurd. Because your 78 year old grandfather could manage his connection it means that anyone else can? That's like a 1 to 20 million sample?

Companies don't get to be jerks to people because its a good way to make money. That's a stupid way to run a world.

Interestingly enough, the TIO is squarely on the side of the (idiot) consumer here.

They have a policy which covers this, called "unlimited credit financial overcommitment".

Basically, it says that unless the ISP can PROVE that they made serious attempts to notify you of your incurring bill, then they have to wear it. If I recall correctly, the lower limit of the financial overcommitment part is something like double or triple your average bill (or above a certain fixed amount).

It's saved me once when Optus really did try to f*** me over hardcore, but I had to take it to a level 3 TIO complaint to have it addressed (because Optus kept trying to fist me whilst I was trying to sort out why they felt I owed them so much*).

However, unfortunately its primary use seems to be to stop idiots from getting nailed by Telstra etc when they get zombiefied etc...


* Simply put, Optus decided that they were going to overcharge me about $900 for no apparent reason. They lost :P